Quality Management Case Study: Toyota's and Healthcare.gov's Issues

This case study analyzes the quality failures of Toyota and Healthcare.gov, focusing on IT project management aspects. The assignment requires a brief case study exploring the quality issues experienced by both entities, including the Toyota Production System (TPS) and the Healthcare.gov website's initial launch. The study examines the apparent problems, the facts surrounding the issues, the real underlying problems, the actions taken to address the issues, the outcomes of those actions, and the lessons learned regarding project quality, supplier responsibility, and customer relations. The analysis should use quality management techniques discussed in the textbook and should be presented in APA format, with a body of between 1.5 and 3 pages. The assignment emphasizes the importance of understanding and addressing quality issues in project management and offers insights into how organizations can learn from their mistakes to improve processes and outcomes.

Case-2 -- Quality Management Case Study
Assignment -- Toyota/Healthcare.gov
You have your choice of two scenarios:
1. 1. Once upon a time, Toyota used to be known for its quality. It was (and still is)
famous for its Toyota Production System (TPS) which, among other things, used
Japanese / Deming style quality management processes.
= or =
1. 2. Consider the initial Healthcare.gov Web site and information system that went public
on 1.October.2013, but that was so poorly designed and tested that essentially nobody
could use it. Additionally, it had significant privacy and security issues.
However, as everyone is now familiar with, they both had serious quality issues. Toyota in
2009-2010 recalled millions of vehicles and stopped production entirely for several months while
they used problem-solving techniques to diagnose and remedy their quality problems due to
crashes and fatalities. The Healthcare.gov Web site was essentially inoperable and few people
could use the site to sign up for health insurance.
What happened and how does it relate to project quality?
Assignment
Do a brief case study of Toyota's or the Healthcare.gov Web site's quality situation.
There is a plethora of information available about this online. Use an ILS library database search
and a Web search to find relevant material. You may also do physical bricks-and-mortar library
research if you wish. (Make sure to properly quote, cite, and reference any material that you
use. Make sure that your paper itself is written in your own words.)
This is intended to be a short case study not an extensive research paper. With so much
information available, it would be easy to spend too much time on researching this and/or writing
it up. Please don't do that. The important thing is to find and summarize Toyota's
/Healthcare.gov's quality problems and their approach to the problem. Additionally, please do
not digress into political issues. While they may or may not be relevant, this is not a political
science course, but an IT project management course, so please concentrate on the IT project
quality management issues.

If possible, use quality management techniques discussed in the textbook to both explain
Toyota's or Healthcare.gov's quality management processes and to discover, define, and analyze
the problems they had with quality.
Explain what went wrong, how Toyota or the Healthcare.gov team discovered the problems,
what they did about it, and how it relates to project quality considerations.
Note: If you elect to study the Healthcare.gov Web site, then please understand that the case is
that of the Web site and the information system behind it. The case is not about the Affordable
Care Act itself nor is the case about the politics of it. This is not a class in government and
politics. So limit your focus to the risk, quality, and project management of the technical Web
site and information system, not on health care financing and not on politics.
Approach and Content
There are many different kinds and purposes of case study (from marketing to business
management to scientific research), each of which have their own approaches and formats. If
you are familiar with a case study approach or format that is an appropriate fit for this case, you
may use it. However, please do not attempt to shoehorn this case into an inappropriate approach
or format.
1. 1. What is the apparent problem/issue? That is, what were the quality issues their
customers were experiencing?
2. 2. What are the facts?
1. a. Background: What was Toyota's production process (TPS - Toyota
Production System) and what was its quality process? Alternatively, what were
the Healthcare.gov team's development processes and quality processes?
2. b. How did Toyota or Healthcare.gov go about investigating its quality issues?
3. 3. What is the real problem? What did Toyota, Healthcare.gov, and others find upon
investigation?
1. a. What were the actual quality issues with their products or systems?
2. b. What were the problems with their quality management processes?
3. c. Were the problems in-house problems, or were they problems with their
suppliers or subcontractors, or were they at both levels? Explain.
4. 4. What did Toyota / Healthcare.gov do about it?
1. a. What changes did they make in their quality management processes?
2. b. What changes did they make in their public relations and marketing to
address the issue?
3. c. Beyond their own findings, what, if anything, would you recommend that
they should have done differently and/or that they should do differently in the
future?
5. 5. What was the outcome?
1. a. As nearly as you can determine from your research, were the changes
successful? Did they restore (or exceed) previous quality levels?

2. b. What is the public's reaction? Is the public convinced that Toyota products or
the Healthcare.gov system now are safe and of high quality?
6. 6. Lessons learned:
1. a. What lessons (e.g., primarily about quality, but if relevant, also about
production, marketing, customer relations, etc) can you derive and abstract from
this that would be of general use in project management and project quality
issues?
2. b. To what extent is an organization responsible for its suppliers' or
subcontractors' problems? Where does the "buck" (the blame, the responsibility)
stop?
Regardless of what approach or format you use, make sure that your analysis includes lessons
learned and how the case relates to project quality issues.
Format
The paper should be in APA format and short, with a body of between 1.5 and 3 pages (not
counting front matter such as title page or back matter such as the reference page)..
It should include a title page and reference page (in APA format). If you wish, it may include a
table of contents and/or an executive summary (each on its own page). None of these count
against the 3 page limit. It may be single or double spaced as you wish.
The content should be presented in an appropriate format with clear section headings relating to
the approach taken for the case study and to the findings of the study. (This does not mean that
your headings should repeat the questions above. Rather, let your headings follow your essay's
outline structure.)